Firing of Macy's worker pits freedom of religion vs. GLBT rights

By Abe Levy :
December 7, 2011
: Updated: December 8, 2011 2:12am

Natalie Johnson says she told a transgender woman she couldn’t use the women’s fitting room at the Rivercenter store.

A former Macy's employee who said she was fired for refusing to let a transgender woman use the women's dressing room at the Rivercenter mall location is trying to get her job back.

The case, pitting freedom of religion in the workplace vs. corporations' growing acceptance for the rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people, has attracted national attention.

Natalie Johnson said that on Nov. 30, she confronted the customer leaving the women's fitting room and politely made clear no men were allowed.

Johnson said the customer wore makeup and dressed in women's clothes but was recognizably a man.

The customer argued she was a woman, but Johnson said she held her ground.

She said a manager called her in the next day.

Johnson said the manager told her transgender people are free to select which fitting room to use. She replied that the policy was against her religious convictions.

“I had to either comply with Macy's or comply with God,” said Johnson, 27, a student at San Antonio College and member of Tabernacle of Prayer, a nondenominational church on the Southwest Side.

The customer's identity has not been revealed.

A spokeswoman from Macy's headquarters in Cincinnati said Wednesday in an email that “we recognize and appreciate the diversity of our customers and associates,” but that the company doesn't comment on personnel matters.

“Transgender people exist and buy clothes and shop and should be treated with the same accommodations as any other person,” he said. “A transsexual woman is a woman. And if the employee's religious beliefs keep her from carrying out her functions on the job, then she should find another job.”

But Johnson wanted to keep her job, and took her case to the Liberty Counsel, a conservative Christian law firm that advocates for religious freedoms.

Matt Staver, the firm's founder and chairman, said Johnson wants her job back and to reform or do away with Macy's policy. A third fitting room to avoid this problem also would help, he said.

“This policy is fraught with problems because it opens up the fitting room for anyone to come in, and employees are not permitted to question it,” Staver said. “To me, it's a liability waiting to happen. It's just a matter of time that a man goes into a female fitting room and watches women undress or, even worse, rapes a woman.”

In May 2010, a transgender employee at a Macy's store in Torrance, Calif., sued the company, accusing it of gender discrimination and wrongful termination.

But since 2007, Macy's has received the top rating of 100 percent in the Human Rights Campaign's evaluation of corporation's treatment of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

In the Rivercenter mall incident, Staver and Johnson said the customer was accompanied by five friends who responded to her objections with expletives. They reminded her of Macy's GLBT-friendly policy, including the use of fitting rooms.

Johnson said she responded that the store also protects her practice of religion, including her right not to ignore what she sees as a person's true gender or to condone homosexuality.

They requested to speak with a manager.

Staver said that when Johnson met with her manager the next day, she asked if Macy's had a policy protecting religious beliefs. She was let go by the end of the meeting, he said.

She said being fired during the holiday season was particularly deflating, but she's relieved her conscience is clean.

“Obviously, (Macy's) policy is not equal, because I was fired for standing up for what I believe in,” Johnson said. “I couldn't lie and say that he was a woman. I'm going to be accountable to what I say to my Lord Jesus. And I'm taking up for my female customers who might feel uncomfortable with a man in the fitting room.”

“Macy's is supporting all people. I'm sorry this ex-employee felt this was a religious issue, but if that's the case, she'll have problems in all walks of life where people make decisions she doesn't agree with.”